Otto took his time, like he wanted to savor the experience, sticking his fingers through first and giving them a good wiggle before holding his breath and easing his way across. The bright edges of the portals collapsed behind the two of them, leaving only the solid walls of the storeroom once more. Otto whistled, impressed.

“Is this about that thing you mentioned when you got here?” Pip asked, straight to business. “The Wending?”

“Indeed. The Wending,” Wander said with a dramatic pause, “is open.”

“Okay,” Pip said, her impatience putting brambles in her words. “But what is the Wending?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” Wander said. They all shook their heads. “The Wending is how Mr. January’s sister is planning to capture you.”

Three

“The Wending isn’t a thing or a place. It’s the roads between worlds,” Wander explained. “It connects all the worlds that are, that were, and that will be. Even some that might have been. You could step through the Wending and into ancient Greece, or the Library of Endersea, or the halls of Atlantis.”

“Atlantis is real?” Otto asked.

Wander smiled. “No, but it might have been, and so the Wending can take you there. My abilities allow me to open doorways between worlds that are close to each other—the ones pressed up against each other’s borders. But if you know how to navigate the Wending, you can enter any world you wish.”

“And what does this have to do with Mr. January’s sister?” Eleanor asked.

Wander looked grim. “The man you know as Mr. January comes from a place called the Pallid Kingdom. A horrible place, with a king and queen intent on devouring all the good of every world. So wicked were they that long ago, their world was cut off from all the rest. But their children were trapped outside the Pallid Kingdom. They have been trying to get back and free their parents ever since.”

Eleanor nodded. They knew this, or at least bits and pieces of it.

“The youngest of the siblings studied the ways between worlds, hoping she could find a way to open the path back to the Pallid Kingdom directly. Her search brought her to the Wending—and at last, recently, she became its mistress. She commands the umbral hounds, and she controls the Wending’s many roads.”

“So why doesn’t she just use it to get home?” Eleanor asked.

“The way to the Pallid Kingdom she seeks is barred. Even the Wending can’t reach it—not without breaking reality entirely. Your mother knows more about the Wending, Eleanor, but I have been unable to contact her.”